In the Midst but Nowhere: Cross-Cultural Narrative Inquiry Into the Experience of International Doctoral Students in a Rural University in the U.S. South

• In Event: Dissecting (De)Humanizing Educational Experiences

Abstract

International students have experienced significant uncertainties and challenges not only from COVID-19 but also from 2020 policy by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Theoretically, my research draws upon cross-cultural narrative (He, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2005), in-betweenness and exile pedagogy (He, 2010), Representations of the intellectual (Saïd, 1994) and Reflections on exile (2000), and Third space (Soja, 1996/2010). My participants include three doctoral international students from Mexico, Yemen, and myself from China. Methodologically, my dissertation builds on “multicultural narrative inquiry” (Phillion, 2002), “cross-cultural narrative inquiry” (He, 2003) and “personal, passionate, and participatory inquiry” (He & Phillion, 2008) that allow those who lived in-between to tell stories of experience during the acculturation and enculturation processes (Brown, 1994; Herskovits, 1958; Schumann, 1978).

Author

• Ru Li, Georgia Southern University